Rusty, padlocked gate, trees in the big garden need
trimming, on a swing, two rusty chains, it lacks
a seat. Autumn and there are apples unpicked on
the ground, fine rain has fallen, drops drips from
trees and glint on tall grass. Soon winter storms
will come rattle the gate and the derelict house-
unlit- will have to shoulder nature’s irate
violence.
If you close your eyes and listen, can you not hear
laughter and see a child sitting on the swing?
Ice-tea and lemonade anyone? July 1956, no one
knew this was their last, a family was about to be
overtaken by life; ruin and scandals, “got what they
deserved,” the hateful said. The child, on the swing
disappears in the mist rolling in from the sea.
INTERMEZZO
Night in the city, streetlamps too far
apart, shadows
between them hinder contact. A cat, is it
black,
crosses the street and disappear into a
yard,
it’s seen by a sewer rat that waits for
thrown away
food to eat outside the burger bar. A
lackluster
breeze blows waste paper about, then stops
rolls
itself into a ball and goes to sleep under
the span of
a bridge. Two hours sleep, and it will be a
morning
breeze. The cat, is it black, has fooled the
long tailed,
it only to feigned disappearance to lure the
rodent
into the open; short struggle, a shudder
oscillate
between shadow and light, come to rest as a
sigh;
motherless baby rats will be food for bigger
ones
as night continues its travel towards a new
day.
THE MIND'S LANDSCAPE
Collector of
dry roses, that's what you are,
in the mirror of tricks, your smile is of
derision.
Seeker of the barren land where black goats
eat thorny roses.
Laughed they did when slewed the soil
refused
to drink their life. a pool of darkening
ruby
on yellow straws and angry glares of troll's
blue eye.
Dweller, go back into your cave, contorted
you're in the mirror of life, rimfrost on
green grass
you're breath's an angst ridden screams of
fear
as life passes you by.
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Jan Oskar Hansen
is a Norwegian poet living in Portugal. His work
appears in several anthologies, magazines andon the
net. He has also published several collections, of
This “Letters from Portugal” Be-write books and “La
Strada”(lapwing Belfast) still in print. 8 of his
poems have recently been translated into French by
Mgv 2_59 en ligne, whichis a French English site.
Hansen’s poems have also appreaerd in “Hudson
Review” and Skyline Magazine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Oskar_Hansen
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